Sophia approached Rocky with a cocky smile on her face, her eyes glinting with the thrill of the anticipated duel.
She thought that while Rocky making short work of the rest of the students was expected, the two of them would have an epic battle as she considered herself to be equally as good, if not better than Rocky.
"Hope you saved some energy for me, Rocky. This won't be as easy as the others," she teased, twirling her sword with practiced flair.
"I don't want you to make the excuse that you were tired from fighting these losers later. This is a fair fight...." She said, as she continued with her mockery of the crowd.
Rocky simply nodded, his expression unreadable while his stance remained loose yet undeniably confident. "We'll see," he replied, his voice low and steady.
As the match began, Sophia launched a series of aggressive strikes aimed to test Rocky's defense.
[ Barrage Thrust ]
Making over 16 sword thrusts in just under three seconds, she launched a flurry of attacks towards Rocky with each thrust and jab being executed with precise skill, intended to push Rocky to his limits.
In her mind, she crafted a narrative of a battle hard-fought and won, as she planned on finding the weakness in Rocky's defenses with her high paced strikes and then exploiting them to burst his jacket.
With her victory to help determine her position as his equal or better.
But to her shock, Rocky countered with minimal effort, his movements sharp and decisive as his blade met hers not with force, but with a precision that redirected her momentum, throwing her off balance.
*OOOH*
Let's all rush towards him ... whatever happens happens-" one blue team member suggested, as everyone around him agreed and nodded.
*GAHHHHH*
As a second wave of students charged towards him, Rocky decided to stop holding back anymore as he began using sword projection mixed with sword intent to its fullest potential.
With his wooden sword beginning to glow and be covered with sword intent, Rocky unleashed very powerful sword projections that burst through the jackets of several enemies approaching him.
If before, Rocky was picking his fights strategically and was fighting sensibly, now, he resorted to indiscriminate slaughter as he eliminated students by the dozens.
16 seconds!
That was all that it took him to eliminate the remaining 46 students who had all charged towards him at once, as once everything was said and done, the single man in black jacket eliminated the entire swordsmanship batch without breaking a sweat.
Shock and disbelief was etched into the faces of all candidates.
Everyone who had made it to the university for nourishment of young talents considered themselves to be one of the elite prodigies of the universe, yet today, they once again received a unfortunate reality check, that while all of them were geniuses on their on planets, in front of freaks like Rocky, they were simply nobodies.
"How could one guy eliminate the entire batch? Did anyone even manage to force him to take a step back?" asked a student in a busted yellow jacket, as not a single student could even seem to claim that they had forced Rocky to take a step back.
"Winner of this training event - from black team! Rocky!" Professor Mae said enthusiastically as she clapped wholeheartedly for Rocky, appreciating the beautiful swordsmanship talent he had just displayed.
"Hahaha, feels good to be back" Rocky said, as he dropped his swords and exhaled some air, accepting his victory almost as nonchalantly as he picked the black jacket before the fight.
It was as if winning was as natural as breathing for him and even after this dominant display, he couldn't really care about gloating about his own victory.